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I used WampServer on Windows until I switched operating systems; I now use XAMPP on Linux. Although I never benchmarked PHP in either environment, I have no preference regarding which OS to run PHP on. I've read that Linux is the most popular, but I don't think that's because of anything relating to PHP in particular. (Plus this is just a development server on my PC, but my deployment server also happens to run Linux.)

Whell if you are just talking about development environments, then mamp, or xamp are fine. But when you are actualy running in production mode and your site is fully running. I would suggest linux.

At work i have both linux, and Microsoft server 2003 servers. And we never use php on windows servers, why go through the extra costs. and you can compile apache to naturally run with php and mysql on it. You will go through alot more problems if you try to get iis to work with php and mysql.

In my opinion, this depends on what your doing. When I am devoping a new site, I use wampserver (on windows, obviously) to test it. Once it is ready to go live, I debug it with xampp server on linux. Really, most live webhosts will use Linux or Unix. I hear that they don't get as bogged down over time as a windows server. Never used one, though, so I don't know.

Linux is also more strict. File paths, for example, are case sensitive on a linux machine but not on a windows machine. This is one reason I debug in linux. On the other hand, there are more editing programs available to windows, which is why I develope with windows vista.

Well editing programs on Linux are by far in greater number. Also, if you are going to use Linux as production avoid Windows then as it won't matter for your dev environment.

Also bear in mind, PHP was originally built with Linux in mind and only later was "ported" for use on Windows. There are many functions in Linux which only really work easily and effectively on Linux and work on Windows only after numerous hacks and work arounds.

Linux also makes installing Apache (normally already installed by default on most distros), PHP and MySQL a case of a few command line arguments and its all ready to run. Windows's installation process is a lot more complex..

Linux also makes installing Apache (normally already installed by default on most distros), PHP and MySQL a case of a few command line arguments and its all ready to run.

Er, commands, generally.

On Windows, PHP and Apache take a lot of tweaking and configuring in order to get them to work. On my (Gentoo) box, the command looks something like this:

Code:

USE=php emerge apache

or, to enable PHP on every future installation of Apache (e.g. updates):

Code:

euse -E php
emerge apache

I don't see the point of using XAMPP on Linux unless you are using a legacy or inadequate distribution. You will not receive updates, compatibility checking, and other benefits from your package manager if you use XAMPP.